1. Technological Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of delivery of digital media data (e.g., text, video, and/or audio) over networks such as the Internet, and specifically in one aspect to delivering emergency alert system (EAS) data in a network to provide alert indications to devices resident within consumer premises.
2. Description of Related Technology
Emergency Alert System (EAS)—
As is well known, the Emergency Alert System (EAS) is designed to allow for the rapid and widespread dissemination of information relating to a national or local emergency to the general public. EAS messages are transmitted for either national, state or local emergencies or other events. Examples of these emergencies or events include: severe weather watch/storm warning, flash floods, earthquakes/tsunami, and war or other “man made” emergencies.
The EAS was designed in part by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in cooperation with the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in order to support the roles of each organization. The FCC provides information to broadcasters, cable system operators, and other participants in the EAS regarding the technical and operational requirements of the EAS. Additionally, the FCC ensures that state and local EAS plans conform to FCC rules and regulations. The NWS provides emergency weather information to alert the public about potential and/or dangerous weather conditions, or other natural events. FEMA provides direction for state and local emergency planning officials to plan and implement their roles in the EAS.
Alerts sent via the EAS may arrive in the form of text, audio and/or video content. Depending on the message type, the subscriber's television or set-top box (STB) will display the message in the appropriate format and according to the prescribed method. State and Local area emergency messages may be transmitted by using EAS Header and End of Message Codes. In television environments, the FCC recommends that the codes be preceded by an announcement that informs listeners that an EAS transmission will occur.
In current digital and analog television systems, the EAS transmissions are received from an over-the-air broadcast. The transmission is then used in two different ways.
First, for analog broadcasts, all of the analog channels are either force-tuned to a broadcast of the EAS transmission or create the appropriate overlay of text and audio. Nothing is required at the subscriber (e.g., set-top box) side since all switching and display functionality is performed in the network head-end.
Second, for digital broadcasts, the digital head-end application server receives the transmission and creates the proper audio, video and/or text message for the digital set-top box (DSTB) or other consumer premises equipment. The DSTB is then responsible for displaying the message to the user as prescribed by the government mandate. If the EAS transmission is video, then the DSTB will “forcibly” tune its tuner to the appropriate analog RF channel to receive, decode and display the video.
Testing of the EAS system generally comprises a weekly test consisting of an eight-second digital data signal. There is also a monthly test that utilizes a test script (e.g., “This is a test of the Emergency Alert System—this is only a test . . . .”). The monthly test script may be developed locally and may contain information that is relevant to the local area into which it is being delivered.
Other features of the digital EAS systems include:
(i) Automatic Operation—The EAS digital system architecture allows broadcast stations, cable systems, participating satellite companies, and other services to send and receive emergency information quickly and automatically even if those facilities are unattended;
(ii) Redundancy—The EAS requires monitoring of at least two independent sources for emergency information. This insures that emergency information is received and delivered to viewers and listeners; and
(iii) Multi-language—EAS digital messages can be automatically converted into any language used by the broadcast station or cable system.
“IPTV” and Other Network Paradigms—
Network operators use other types of networks such as Internet protocol (IP) networks to distribute broadcast television programming to subscribers. This is to be contrasted with more traditional radio frequency (over-the-air) broadcasts, or in-band delivery via packetized MPEG-2 program streams. Such IP delivery of broadcast television programming also requires a method for the delivery of EAS data to subscriber units such as personal computers (PC), as well as a method to display such information on the display monitor (and audio system) of these units.
In Internet protocol television (IPTV) and similar distribution networks, a wider choice of audio/video codecs is being considered. For example, MPEG-2, MPEG-4/H.264 (advanced video codec or “AVC”), are a few of the possible audio/video compression formats that have been deployed. While these new formats and their associated compression technology is useful in providing streaming audio/video programs to end users, these formats do not typically support any type of EAS data delivery. While some video codecs have the ability to embed caption or similar information within the video stream (MPEG-2/MPEG-4, etc.), many video codecs do not. Accordingly, the ability to transport at least some of the EAS information to the displaying client outside of the content (e.g., video) packet streams would be of particular utility.
Other Emergency Alert Approaches—
A variety of other approaches to emergency alert transmission over a network (and display be user devices) are evidenced in the prior art. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,993,955 to Belcher, et al. issued Nov. 23, 1976 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ESTABLISHING EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS IN A TWO-WAY CABLE TELEVISION SYSTEM”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,240,555 issued May 29, 2001 to Shoff, et al entitled “INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM FOR PRESENTING SUPPLEMENTAL INTERACTIVE CONTENT TOGETHER WITH CONTINUOUS VIDEO PROGRAMS”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,492 to Drury issued on Sep. 17, 2002 entitled “EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,714,534 to Gerszberg, et al. issued Mar. 30, 2004 entitled “LIFELINE SERVICE FOR HFCLA NETWORK USING WIRELESS ISD”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,766,163 issued Jul. 20, 2004 to Sharma entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM OF DISPLAYING TELETEXT INFORMATION ON MOBILE DEVICES”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,771,302 issued Aug. 3, 2004 to Nimri, et al entitled “VIDEOCONFERENCE CLOSED CAPTION SYSTEM AND METHOD”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,792,616 issued Sep. 14, 2004 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING A PLURALITY OF PROGRAMMING SERVICES IN A TELEVISION SYSTEM”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,903,779 issued Jun. 7, 2005 to Dyer entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DISPLAYING RELATED COMPONENTS OF A MEDIA STREAM THAT HAS BEEN TRANSMITTED OVER A COMPUTER NETWORK”, U.S. Patent Application No. 20030121036 to Lock, et al. published on Jun. 26, 2003 entitled “CATV MESSAGING ALERT SYSTEM”, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20040181811 to Rakib published on Sep. 16, 2004 entitled “THIN DOCSIS IN-BAND MANAGEMENT FOR INTERACTIVE HFC SERVICE DELIVERY”, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20050015799 to Park published Jan. 20, 2005 entitled “APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DISPLAYING OUT-OF-BAND (OOB) CHANNEL INFORMATION IN OPEN CABLE SYSTEM”, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20050151639 to Bulmer published Jul. 14, 2005 entitled “ALERT SYSTEM”, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20050162267 to Khandelwal, et al. published on Jul. 28, 2005 and entitled “EMERGENCY ALERT SERVICE”, and U.S. Patent Publication No. 20050198684 to Stone, et al. published Sep. 8, 2005 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING A DSG TO AN OOB TRANSCODER”.
“Digicable” is another prior art system supplied by General Instrument (Motorola) for end-to-end satellite and cable system distribution networks. It uses an out-of-band data channel to deliver common system information associated with all in-band channels. Out-of-band traffic in these systems included: Entitlement Management Messages (EMM) addressed to individual STBs and carrying conditional access secure authorization instructions for requested services; Service Information that supports the STB navigation application with information about the requested service; program guide information to display what is on the various channels at various times; an Emergency Alert System messages to cause the STB to display a text message, play an audio message or force tuning to an alert channel.
Additional technological advancements have lead to the proliferation of home management systems. Such systems employ communications technologies (such as wireless and Internet communication) to provide remote access and control to a user's home security and automation systems. In this manner, information relating to connected devices may be transmitted wirelessly to a user's mobile telephone. For example, home security data may be collected from security apparatus (such as cameras, sensors, etc.) and provided to a user. Additionally, the foregoing technologies may be used to enable a user to control various appliances at the user's home remotely (via the mobile device). For example, the user may turn on/off lights, air conditioning, and other appliances.
From the foregoing, it is clear that while the prior art has generally recognized the need to receive and provide EAS data to client devices over analog networks, and to enable EAS decode and display capability compatible with an audio/video decoder on a client device, it fails to provide adequate alerting in circumstances in which a user may be unaware of the EAS message. For example, the user may not be in a close enough proximity to be made aware of the EAS message, or the responsible display device is not powered on. Accordingly, the user may be at an increased risk of injury and or loss due to the lack of being informed of the emergency.
Accordingly, what are needed are apparatus and methods that provide a mechanism for robustly alerting users of a received EAS message. Such apparatus and methods should preferably be able to provide emergency indications to a variety of consumer premises and mobile devices, and in a comprehensive manner. Lastly, these methods and apparatus would in certain implementations require only minimal changes to existing systems, thereby leveraging the installed infrastructure as much as possible.